The time has come to bring all the tutorials, tips and tricks for MagicPicker color wheel, MixColors color mixer and DiskFonts font management plugins in one place! There are now more than 50 of them and the list is growing!

“Another great event lined up for the Black Rock Crew. World renowned concept artist John Wallin Liberto will be spending some quality time at the studio with our teams.

The plan to is run a 3 day master class workshop in digital painting. John’s work and talent is truly incredible. We’re honored to have him come and… stay with us and share some insights into his craft. If you’re not already familiar with John’s work — check out his impressive reel at the link provided.”

Hello again fellow-Creative-Beings.I hope that since my last article you have had a chance to digest the new information from “Designing 101” and apply the knowledge to your décor in some way.For those of you that were brave enough to comment on my article, I salute you.

Today I come to you with a question that you probably do not hear often.What are you hanging on the walls of your offices or homes? To be more specific, do you know how it’s printed? Do you know what compounds are in the inks, dyes, pigments, and papers? Does it outgas or offgas? Is it healthy? Do you care?

Creating sustainable, healthy interior graphics for interior decor in commercial and residential settings does not happen accidentally.Sustainable, “Green” fine art and photographic reproductions of the highest quality are infused with a high degree of care and detail while being produced.Many clients do not even realize these factors exist when shopping for printed art and simply never ask about it.

Recently I inquired about Anastasiy Safari’s printing and mounting methods, in particular the Fire and Wood piece.I think you will be just as impressed as I was when you find out how many steps this extraordinary piece had undergone before it reached the white walls of the gallery it rests on today.

Recently I’ve created a panel for Photshop CS4 for better colorpicking. Actually I made it for myself tired of that tiny modal dialog that lets you pick colors in PS. Meanwhile it got spread on Adobe forums and then they even wrote about it in official Adobe blogs:

So, here’s the Christmas gift from the blog to all of our creative readers here it goes:

1. Download colorpicker.zip from here: ColorPicker Panel for Photoshop CS4 from Anastasiy Safari
2. Create a folder inside Adobe Photoshop CS4 in /Plug-ins/Panels named “ColorPicker”.
3. Then extract the files from the colorpicker.zip into that folder
4. Restart Photoshop - and open the new colorpicker panel from Window | Extentions | ColorPicker

Features: non-modal genuine Photoshop panel, smart resizing, works in full-screen mode when Tools are hidden, returns back focus to Photoshop after choosing a color - so you can immediately use PS keyboard shortcuts.

I am excited to be given this opportunity to voice my two cents on Safari’s blog. My hope is that my passion for art and design will shine through even if I would seam to ramble at times. Passion for beautiful things can not be hidden, it cannot be taught, it cannot be subdued. You either have it or you don’t! I found many beautiful things on Safari’s website and I am excited to blog about them here going forward. Other Creative Junkies as myself who may find that my opinion rubs you the wrong way, please feel free to put in a few cents of your own. Now for a little taste of my world view.
Professional Designers, amateur decorators, and everybody in between have probably had an instance where they can relate to the following situation. The room that you have been designing for months finally has the walls painted just the right shade, the furniture complimenting the window shades perfectly, the flooring is simply amazing, and the only thing keeping your room from being design magazine worthy is a bare and empty wall.

Admit it, finding art is one of the most difficult parts of designing! For some reason it is the item that most people save for last when it comes to picking out design elements for a space. Once the room is almost complete, it is very difficult to find a piece that will match with paint on the walls, window treatments, flooring and the rest of the many colors and textures that are already within the room.

Many homeowners will select paint color for their walls as the first element in their design process, while designers will choose a single item as their inspiration. The truth of the matter is that paint comes in thousands of colors. If you still can’t find the perfect shade of fuchsia, then Sherwin Williams would be glad to make up a custom batch for you. Designers on the other hand, realize that rare and unusual pieces are what make a space. A table centerpiece may be the last thing that somebody’s eye may go to when they walk into a room, but it will be all they can see within the room for the rest of the night. Not to mention that interesting works of art make great conversation pieces.

Establishing the basis for a room design is not easy, but it is very simple to fall in love with art. If you can fall for a piece of art, then you already have a starting point. For example, take Anastasiy Safari’s photograph “Black Sea Oblivion.” If the designer establishes that photograph as the basis for the room design, she has several routes to take; one option is to pick up on the shades of blues and grays in the picture and utilize those colors in the fabric (seating, window treatments, cushions) or wall coverings. The other option is to pick up on the water/nature theme in the photograph. An example of this would be to place a shallow glass bowl on a table filled with smooth, shiny rocks and some peat moss surrounding the stones. If you aren’t worried about kids or pets knocking the bowl over, then fill it with water. This would mimic the 2-D ocean scene in the photograph but in 3-D in your own room. No matter what the theme is in the photograph, the most important thing is that it speaks to you. Once you can ‘hear’ what the art piece is saying to you only then can a beautiful dialogue emerge in your room.